Re: [tuning] Digest Number 1374

Alison wrote:

> The Hilliards could sing anything from any repertoire with consummate
> ease, believe me.

They are terrific, but your description doesn't correspond exactly to the
experience we had recently when the Hilliards were here in Boston for two
concerts. They took on the task of working up 7 new pieces in three days.
Some of the pieces were extremely difficult. For my piece, which was
medium-difficult and only 7-8 mins long, they spent about 90 minutes of
hard work on it, with me present. I would have liked another half-hour,
though I'm really not complaining about the job they did. Other tougher
pieces had more than 3 hours spent on them with the composers, plus
whatever time the Hilliards had spent before coming here (they had the
scores for about a month, but of course they were very busy - they did at
least read through everything and do some preliminary work before getting
here). In any case, two or three of the composers wrote foolishly
difficult pieces, unsuited to the group, and in one case one movement of a
multi-movement piece had to be left out because the group couldn't get it
prepared in time.

My point is, they might be terrific musicians and the world's greatest
singers of a certain kind, but even 12-tet music, if written in a harmonic
style they're not familiar with, can pose very difficult pitch problems
for singers (and I'm not even going to broach the subject of rhythm - oops
I just did). Only one of the four members of the Hilliard ensemble who
were here has perfect pitch sensitive to tiny fractions of a semitone -
Rogers Covey-Crump, who also writes the tuning notes as companion to their
CDs on the HilliardLIVE label. To get choral or vocal works done precisely
in new tunings won't take simply the best singers, it will take people
willing to dedicate a LOT of time to ear-training in the new systems. With
over 100 concerts a year, the Hilliards or similar professional groups
won't be able--or even interested, I imagine--to put in that sort of time.
Unless you could pay them for a year. The really good singers are too busy
succesfully earning their living, and the pretty good singers are too busy
trying to become really good, really succesful singers.

Cheers --Jon

Jon,

It was fascinating to see your "behind the scenes" note about working
with the Hilliards. Rarely do we see examples on the list of people
working with new compositions and interfacing with well-known and
talented performers. I can't remember as valuable a real-world
glimpse as this in a long time...

Cheers,
Jon

--- In tuning@y..., JSZANTO@A... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_24215.html#24229

> Jon,
>
> It was fascinating to see your "behind the scenes" note about
working
> with the Hilliards. Rarely do we see examples on the list of people
> working with new compositions and interfacing with well-known and
> talented performers. I can't remember as valuable a real-world
> glimpse as this in a long time...
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

This is *exactly* the kind of "self aggrandizing" post that wastes
bandwidth...

________ ______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, June 01, 2001 2:12 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Re: Digest Number 1374 (Hilliards)
>

> This is *exactly* the kind of "self aggrandizing" post that wastes
> bandwidth...

OK, at this point would Joe P. and Jon S. please take this
communication off-list? Thanks.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> OK, at this point would Joe P. and Jon S. please take this
> communication off-list? Thanks.

Yep.

On 6/1/01 5:12 PM, "jpehrson@rcn.com" <jpehrson@rcn.com> wrote:

>> Jon,
>>
>> It was fascinating to see your "behind the scenes" note about working
>> with the Hilliards. Rarely do we see examples on the list of people
>> working with new compositions and interfacing with well-known and
>> talented performers. I can't remember as valuable a real-world
>> glimpse as this in a long time...
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Jon
>
> This is *exactly* the kind of "self aggrandizing" post that wastes
> bandwidth...

Ok wait...

This looks to me, after looking through recent posts,
as if Jon Szanto was talking to Jon Wild.
At a first or quick glance it looks as if he was talking to himself,
complimenting himself, calling himself fascinating.
For the reply to make sense,
I'm guessing this is how Joseph Pehrson read this?

Marc

Joseph - is this hostility really necessary?

David Beardsley
--- In tuning@y..., JSZANTO@A... wrote:

/tuning/topicId_24215.html#24229

> Jon,
>
> It was fascinating to see your "behind the scenes" note about
working
> with the Hilliards. Rarely do we see examples on the list of people
> working with new compositions and interfacing with well-known and
> talented performers. I can't remember as valuable a real-world
> glimpse as this in a long time...
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

This is *exactly* the kind of "self aggrandizing" post that wastes
bandwidth...

________ ______ _____
Joseph Pehrson

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